A hacker known for attacking news websites has claimed successful hacks against both the Wall Street Journal and Vice.
An individual going under the handle "w0rm" posted screenshots in a bid to substantiate his claims of hacks against the WSJ (here) and Vice (here) before offering to sell stolen databases from both publications …

Three men have been charged with pilfering trade secrets from a Wall Street firm after two of them emailed themselves computer code belonging to their former employer from their company email accounts.
Glen Cressman and Jason Vuu, both former employees of Wall Street firm Flow Traders, were each charged with unlawful duplication …

A new chapter has started in the long and complex story of Julian Assange’s relationship with mainstream media, with the Wall Street Journal launching a competitor whistleblower site.
SafeHouse is soliciting whistleblower documents covering “politics, government, banking, Wall Street, deals and finance, corporations, labor, law …

Chinese web marketplace Alibaba reportedly looks set to field its initial public offering in the US after it failed to secure a stock exchange listing in Hong Kong.
The online-shopping powerhouse, which is headed up by Jack Ma, could float on Wall Street early next year with a price tag valued at $70bn, the Wall Street Journal …

Eric Schmidt has joined the board of The Economist Group for a three-year run after a shareholder vote, the group has announced.
Technology is supposed to be destroying the traditional media, but tech gurus can't seem to keep their mitts off the sector. Google's Schmidt is just the latest to get involved with the old guard, …

Analysis
The Wall Street Journal is the latest media titan after the New York Times to admit it was raided by Chinese hackers.
The WSJ confessed on Thursday a day after the NYT similarly blamed intruders linked to China's military for a persistent four-month assault against its computer systems.
The attack against the NYT used a …

Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt has complained that the end of the Google Glass Explorer program was misunderstood as being the end of the entire Glass concept, “which isn't true”.
Following the announcement that Google had shelved the Glass Explorer on January 19th, the assumption was that the techno-specs have seen …

Steve Jobs took the iPad to the Wall Street Journal to explain why the paper should drop Adobe's Flash, to a cool reception.
The details of Mr. Jobs' presentation to staff at the Journal were revealed by ValleyWag. They included his dismissal of Adobe's Flash technology along with the arguments about why the Journal should drop …

A failed 2011 merger with AT&T is paying off in a big way for T-Mobile US.
Analysts at New Street Research (via The Wall Street Journal) estimate that a $1bn spectrum package T-Mobile US received in the wake of the ill-fated acquisition has ballooned in value to $4.7bn.
The frequencies were part of a $4bn breakup package AT&T …

Google has padded out a team of engineers to beaver away at an Android operating system to power virtual reality devices, it has been reported.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the ad giant plans to follow its well-worn OS smartphone path, by releasing a VR version of its platform that will be freely available online. …

Yahoo! has shown off an OpenPGP-based end-to-end e-mail encryption it says will be offered as a plug-in by the end of the year.
Its aim is to make PGP-based encryption more accessible to the everyday layperson.
Described in this blog post by Purple Palace chief information security officer Alex Stamos, the mail encryption code …

Apple TV users might be getting new channels, and Cupertino some more money, according to insiders in the firm.
The Cupertino giant is in talks to put out a subscription television service with Fox, CBS and the Discovery Networks, The Wall Street Journal reports. Apple is currently part of a conglomerate that includes ABC, …

The Wall Street Journal online, one of the few remaining news websites that's charging for access, plans to introduce a micro-payments scheme this autumn.
Non-subscribers will be charged to view individual articles, according to a report Sunday — somewhat amusingly by the WSJ's overseas rival, The Financial Times and not the …

Google has signed a deal to collaborate with Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Ethicon to work on surgical robotics applications.
The J&J statement says the two companies will “bring together capabilities, intellectual property and expertise” in building a robotic-assisted surgical platform, with the kind of supporting sentence that …

Historic retailer RadioShack, currently under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, will learn its fate today, as its assets go up for auction, although its options for survival look distinctly limited.
A $145.5m bid from Standard General LP, a hedge fund which is also one of RadioShack’s lenders, could save 9,000 jobs and 1,723 out …

EMC has reportedly refused to say whether or not it intends to sell a stake in VMware, after being reported as entertaining just such a sale.
Confused? Here's how this is playing out.
Back in July, activist investor Elliot Management picked up a stake in EMC. Someone then whispered in The Wall Street Journal's ear that Elliot …

Hours after rumours surfaced suggesting that Apple was working on an "automotive product" with established carmakers – new gossip apparently reveals that Cupertino will go it alone with a self-driving electric vehicle.
The Tim Cook-run firm is said to be discussing its plans with eggheads at car manufacturers, but purely – it …

Google has added car insurance to its "Google Compare" suite of products, which are "designed to help people make confident, more informed financial decisions."
Insurance providers have been told by the Chocolate Factory that "people searching for car insurance on their phone or computer can find you along with an apples-to- …

Social link-sharing site Pinterest has taken in a new round of funding that gives the firm at a hefty US$11bn valuation.
The company said in an SEC filing that it had already agreed to sell off $367,099,927 in equity and hopes to move another $210,816,979 (for a total of around $577.9m) in venture capitol investments.
That sale …

Google is about to enter the lucrative revenue stream of advertising to children, with the Chocolate Factory set to reportedly announce a YouTube app for kids.
YouTube executive Malik Ducard will unveil YouTube Kids on Monday at the entertainment industry event Kidscreen Summit, according to The Wall Street Journal.
A source …

Yahoo! is close to a deal where it would invest $20m of its Alibaba pot in startup Snapchat, valuing the IM service at around $10bn, according to reports.
The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times said that familiar people had told them that Yahoo! had started negotiations with the idea of investing up to $50m, but that …

Selling hardware to the financial industry used to be a cash cow for big-name server makers, but they will be getting short shrift from Bank of America, which is shifting its IT into a white-box-powered, software-defined cloud.
"I worry that some of the partners that we work closely with won't be able to make this journey," …

Google is reportedly close to flinging $1bn at Elon Musk's SpaceX to bulk up investment in the private company's development of satellites for internet-based services.
According to The Information, which cited several people familiar with the matter, a deal could be sealed soon. One source said that Google had agreed to value …

HP is reportedly on the lookout for an Asian suitor to buy a majority of the company's stake in its China-based H3C Technologies.
According to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, HP is in tentative talks with private equity outfits in the People's Republic.
The apparent move comes after HP confirmed …

Security researcher Randy Westergren has reverse engineered super popular app Trivia Crack, recompiled it to help cheaters and along the way showed how to turn it into nastyware.
Trivia Crack has taken the world by storm, accruing some 130 million installs across Android devices and an unknown on iOS units.
The app which pits …

Hewlett-Packard is reportedly planning a big break-up of its businesses, splitting its PC and printer operations from the company's corporate hardware and services divisions.
The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, said that the huge rejig could be announced by HP on Monday.
One source told the …

Apple has apparently shanghaied experts from the automotive industry for a super-secret project or two that no one really knows anything about.
CEO Tim Cook and bling-master Sir Jony Ive have been meeting – and trying to hire – eggheads at Mercedes-Benz and other manufacturers to help develop an Apple "automotive product," it's …

Battery manufacturer A123 Systems, specialists in large-scale battery tech for vehicles and power grids, has slung a sueball at Apple for allegedly poaching its engineers.
The case concerns five former employees of A123 currently employed by Apple, according to a court filing released on Tuesday.
While employed by A123, the …

With the Apple Watch allegedly just weeks away from going on sale, industry pundits are weighing in on their predictions for the Cupertino wearable.
And boy, do those estimates differ, with wide ranges of price tags and sales figures.
According to analysts, the Apple watch will be a hit, unless it's not, and its cost will range …

It seems no one is making money from online goggle box YouTube, least of all Google – despite reports that the company generated $4bn (£2.6bn) revenue last year.
While YouTube accounted for about six per cent of Google’s overall sales last year, it didn’t contribute to earnings, a source told the Wall Street Journal.
YouTube's …

Chinese activist site Greatfire.org which masks censored traffic into the country is under a sustained distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that is racking up $30,000 a day in server costs.
The website masks internet traffic from websites including Facebook and Google, so it can be seen in China, and does so using cloudy …

Apple has scrapped certain health-monitoring technologies from its upcoming Watch, it's reported, following problems with sensors and regulations.
Some of the features are too complicated, while others would have prompted unwanted attention from watchdogs, it's reported. We're told the Watch has failed to meet Cupertino's strict …

Apple is wolfing down KitKats and Lollipops for lunch after it emerged that most iPhone 6 users have come from Android.
iBling salesman Tim Cook told the Wall Street Journal that only 15 per cent of iPhone 6 customers have upgraded from other iPhones.
It’s the first time he’s given a number for this trend, and although he’s …

Chinese mobe-maker ZTE is ramping up its R&D by ¥400 million RMB*, and wants 800 new engineers in China, Europe and the US – all to help it keep pace with 5G development.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal the company's chief scientist, Dr Xiang Jiying said that the company sees the technology's touted 1,000-times 4G's capacity …

An attack against US State Department servers is still ongoing three months after the agency spotted miscreants inside its email system, it's reported.
In November the State Department was forced to suspend its unclassified email systems after it was successfully infiltrated by hackers unknown. At the time the agency said its …

The Chinese government is clamping down on cloud services provided by some of the world's biggest tech companies because they are being used to evade the Great Firewall.
Activists outside China have admitted that they use US cloud providers like Microsoft and Amazon to hide encrypted packets in seemingly innocuous accounts in …

Video
Creating patriotic songs is an age-old solution to difficult problems, albeit one that is out of fashion in the Western world.
Not so in China, which has just released a tremendous rousing tribute to its clean, clear and incorruptible internet.
The song is performed by the Cyberspace Administration of China choral group, …

The world's biggest consumer drone maker, China’s SZ DJI Technology Co, has released its "most advanced" drone to date.
The manufacturer unveiled its Inspire 1 Drone, priced at $2,899- $3,399 (or from £2,380 in the UK store), which will go on sale this month.
The kit includes a 360˚ rotating 4K camera, high-definition video …

Holiday good cheer may be short-lived for eBay employees this year, many of whom could reportedly lose their jobs not long after the Christmas shopping season.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the online tat bazaar is considering cutting as much as 10 per cent of its workforce in the New Year, with most of the 3,000 layoffs …

Xavier Niel, the owner of French ISP and mobile phone company Iliad, is buying Orange Switzerland for CHF2.8bn (€2.3bn) from VC Apax Partners.
Iliad, under its Free Mobile brand, is a 3G and 4G operator but grew its mobile business through a 2G roaming deal with Orange and used aggressive pricing to grow its market share.
Niel’ …

Elevation and Vertigo may be songs that hit the high notes for Apple boss Tim Cook's chums U2, but the same can't be said for sales of iTunes music right now, which have reportedly nosedived since the start of 2013.
According to the Wall Street Journal, iTunes revenue witnessed a rapid decline of around 13 per cent to 14 per …

Apple is in the final stages of designing a 12-inch iPad as big as a dinner plate, it has been claimed.
A Japanese magazine called MacOtakara has published blueprints for a device it called the "iPad Air Plus", which will be a bigger version of the world's most famous fondleslab.
It will feature a 12.2-inch display and an A9 …

Facebook has paid a bunch of consultants to make the dubious claim that the free-content ad network's worldwide economic value is far greater than the billions of dollars in sales it drums up each year.
If figures from Deloitte are to be believed, Mark Zuckerberg's ego was stroked to the tune of $227bn, based on the assertion …

Action camera company GoPro is reportedly planning to develop and sell its own line of camera-equipped drones.
A report from The Wall Street Journal cites sources familiar with the plans in reporting that the company will develop "multirotor helicopters" with built-in HD cameras.
According to the report, the company would begin …

Proving the old adage that everything old is new again, Amazon is reportedly planning to open its first-ever bricks-and-mortar location in New York City, just in time for the holiday shopping season.
According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, the e-commerce titan is beavering away at renovating a space at 7 West 34th …

China has been warned of an approaching robot bubble fuelled by Beijing's desire to massively overdevelop the internal automation market.
Worried by sluggish growth and ominous warnings of an imminent slowdown, the Chinese state wants to build an army of robotic workers. It plans to create five robotics "champion" firms which …

Space rocket baron Elon Musk is reportedly in tentative talks with industry players and regulatory bods to build 700 internet satellites weighing less than 250 pounds each.
The billionaire is discussing the plans with Greg Wyler, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Until very recently, Wyler was leading Google's efforts to …

WorldVu, an outfit that last year looked to have Elon Musk and Google backing its vision for a fleet of broadband-beaming low-earth orbit satellites, has scored support from Virgin Group and Qualcomm.
Now operating as OneWeb Ltd, but still helmed by former Google man Greg Wyler, the plan now calls for 648 satellites instead of …

Updated
Hackers calling themselves the "CyberCaliphate" briefly seized control of the official Twitter account of US Central Command (CENTCOM) on Monday, and used it to post what appeared to be sensitive government documents.
The group first posted to the CENTCOM account at around noon, Eastern Time, with a message threatening US …

A Taiwanese watchdog claims 12 of the world's largest makers of cellphones have broken laws safeguarding privacy.
The state's National Communications Commission, which has probed several tech giants, wouldn't name all of the accused – but officials at the regulator mentioned Apple, Xiaomi, Samsung, Sony and HTC, according to the …